The Car Thread ... !

[Digital Dude]

Yeah, that’s the end of a legendary badge.

The V series ATS sounds terrific, the CTS-V is pretty outstanding in all flavors, but per another thread, my “guilty pleasure” is the CTS-V Wagon, just because the idea of a Supercharged V8 ~550HP _wagon_ just makes me smile

[edit]

Adding a wagon pic

It’s been a while since a new car caught my attention, but this one definitely does. I don’t even want to check the price. 🥺

 

[Alphazoid]

Fantastic in red; it's such a good colour...

Some 437Ms in a bright silver would look superb on your 340i I reckon

Agreed. I've been lowkey window browsing for wheels and the 437Ms are very compelling.

 

[danb1979]

Agreed. I've been lowkey window browsing for wheels and the 437Ms are very compelling.

They're great wheels; forged too, so nice and light

That's why I stick with the 18" 405Ms on the touring, they're forged at c9kg a corner. Makes a big difference!

There's usually a set of 437Ms being sold on M3Cutters or the UK section of Bimmerpost forums etc - worth having a look

 

[danb1979]

Agreed. I've been lowkey window browsing for wheels and the 437Ms are very compelling.

Saw these and thought of you

Genuine BMW M3 M4 437M Wheels

Genuine M3 M4 437M Wheels Great condition, no kerb damage or corrosion. 1 wheel has been scratched inside from a stone. Still have all the tyre pressure monitoring fitted. Tyres fitted are very worn, will need to be replaced for road use. Located in Shrewsbury £1000

forums.m3cutters.co.uk

 

[danb1979]

The touring on Saturday after a very quick wash and dry; the full detail/polish etc I did the other week has paid off in dividends

 

[Alphazoid]

Saw these and thought of you

Genuine BMW M3 M4 437M Wheels

Genuine M3 M4 437M Wheels Great condition, no kerb damage or corrosion. 1 wheel has been scratched inside from a stone. Still have all the tyre pressure monitoring fitted. Tyres fitted are very worn, will need to be replaced for road use. Located in Shrewsbury £1000

forums.m3cutters.co.uk

Will have a look. Cheers.

 

[avro707]

The Mansour Ojjeh Collection - Tom Hartley Jnr

www.tomhartleyjnr.com

For sale, the McLaren collection of Mansour Ojjeh, almost all of them in the beautiful colour "Yquem" which was only ever applied to Ojjeh's cars.

Among them:

McLaren F1 #075
McLaren P1 375/375
McLaren Elva
McLaren Sabre
McLaren Senna
McLaren Senna LM
McLaren Senna GTR
McLaren 600LT (last bult)
McLaren 600LT Spider (last built)
McLaren 620R
McLaren Speedtail 106/106
McLaren 675LT Coupe - original but high spec and delivery mileage - chassis 675/500, special chassis number!
McLaren 675LT Spider Carbon Edition 7525 (25 of 25)
McLaren 650S Spider Can-Am 50/50
McLaren 650S Le Mans Edition
McLaren 688 High Sport (MSO HS)
McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition 50/50
McLaren 765LT 765/765
McLaren 765LT Spider 765/765

Both 765LTs are indentical spec.

Not at the location there is the P1 GTR. It is in McLaren Technology Centre on display on the "boulevard".

Mansour was one of the key people behind the road-car division of McLaren. If I remember correctly it was Ojjeh, Gordon Murray, Ron Dennis and Creighton Brown who started the whole thing going.

I expect the F1 will go for an enormous amount, so too the others. It would be nice if the collection stays together. That collection is unbelievable.

I have been lucky to see a 675LT Carbon Edition last week, but Mansour's car is way more stunning.

 

[BotchQue]

MKBHD just did a review of the first hybrid Porsche 911. The electric motors are not connected to the drivetrain, but rather to the (large) turbo; it's kept spinning at full speed so there is no turbo lag when you decide to punch it; interesting idea! At first I thought keeping the turbo spooled up all the time would increase wear, but a buddy pointed out that most of the wear occurs when a cold turbo spins up from zero with a huge heat dump, so... hmm?

 

[avro707]

MKBHD just did a review of the first hybrid Porsche 911. The electric motors are not connected to the drivetrain, but rather to the (large) turbo; it's kept spinning at full speed so there is no turbo lag when you decide to punch it; interesting idea! At first I thought keeping the turbo spooled up all the time would increase wear, but a buddy pointed out that most of the wear occurs when a cold turbo spins up from zero with a huge heat dump, so... hmm?

Electric motor in the PDK transmission as well as the turbo:

Porsche 911 Carrera GTS | Porsche USA

www.porsche.com

See the highlights further down the page. Good idea using the electric turbos, quite a few cars have that - helpful for the powerful diesels which can sometimes have a bit of lag from start.

The AMG One also has electric turbo technology, but it goes a bit further:

1x MGU-H turbocharger: https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/tech-explained-formula-1-mgu-h/
1x MGU-K E-motor (Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic)
2x front-axle E-motors

Complicated, but it works. All necessary when you want that level of performance from just 1.6L. Unfortunately very expensive technology.

 

[JT2002TJ]

MKBHD just did a review of the first hybrid Porsche 911. The electric motors are not connected to the drivetrain, but rather to the (large) turbo; it's kept spinning at full speed so there is no turbo lag when you decide to punch it; interesting idea! At first I thought keeping the turbo spooled up all the time would increase wear, but a buddy pointed out that most of the wear occurs when a cold turbo spins up from zero with a huge heat dump, so... hmm?

Another cool thing, I think I heard that Volvo did, was have a mechanical compressor with an air tank to build up pressure which then dumps into the exhaust pre-turbo when the engine is at low rpms and the driver gives throttle. This drastically reduces turbo lag since it can quickly dump. Once there is enough exhaust gas flow, the compressor builds up pressure in the tank again.

I didn't watch MKBHD's video yet, I will check it out.

 

[avro707]

Another cool thing, I think I heard that Volvo did, was have a mechanical compressor with an air tank to build up pressure which then dumps into the exhaust pre-turbo when the engine is at low rpms and the driver gives throttle.

If I remember right, the Ford World Rally Team did something funny to try and get more power with a system that was vaguely similar on one version of the Focus WRC (the one with the bulky bumper). It didn't really give that much extra benefit considering the complexity.

Interesting idea, but they could have just taken the Toyota Celica idea to get around the air-restrictor! It was a spring washer that cleverly and simply allowed the engine to breath better and netted them something like 45hp more(!).

Juha Kankkunen, one of the drivers was interviewed and asked by a commentator about this incredible speed:

Reporter: Juha, the Toyotas are looking very powerful today, where is that from?
Juha K: Oh err, I don't know, maybe it's from here! (flexing his arm muscles and pointing to them)

That was pretty rich! They were caught and got a huge penalty for their troubles.

I did happen to see on the Tom Hartley Jnr site, some of the Bernie Ecclestone F1 car collection photos. The ones that caught my eye (they are all stunning) were the Brabhams:

BT55 Chassis 7: https://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/car/previously-sold/1986/brabham/bt55/brabham-bt55/

That was the infamous pancake Brabham with the spectacularly flat design, with a 72º layover BMW M12 1499cc turbo engine. Supposedly 900hp in race tune and more than 1000hp in qualifying, though I suspect the actual figure is more than 1300hp in qualifying given that BMW M12 was the most powerful engine of the lot. Also interesting is that it had a Weismann 7 speed manual, supposedly to address the bad turbo lag of the BMW M12. The car could supposedly top 345km/h.

BT52B chassis 5: https://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/car/previously-sold/1983/brabham/bt52b/brabham-bt52b-2/

Nelson Piquet title winning car. Also tested by Ayrton Senna. Amazing.

BT49C chassis 15: https://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/car/previously-sold/1981/brabham/bt49c/brabham-bt49c/

3.0L Ford V8 powered, this was the car that had the very naughty hydro-pneumatic suspension system to get around the restrictions on skirts and ride height. At one point it also had water cooling for the brakes, another extremely dodgy way to make the car lighter. If the car broke down on track it was panic stations to quickly get the water tank filled up. There is a good diagram here from Gordon Murray on the suspension system:

Retro F1: La suspensión especial del BT49

En los últimos días se ha viralizado una «confesión» por parte de Bernie Ecclestone sobre la definición de campeonato de 1981 que tuvo a su piloto Nelson Piquet de Brabham y al argentino Carlos Reu…

elotroladodelascarreras.blog

I know that's by Murray because I recognise his hand writing.

And the last one that I love and probably the wildest of the lot was the BT46B:

Brabham BT46B 'Fan Car' - Tom Hartley Jnr

Included in the sale of the Ecclestone Grand Prix Collection. Brabham’s most iconic and famous car. Driven by Niki Lauda to victory in the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, in which he won the race by over half a minute. Following its victory in Sweden, the car also achieved a second place finish at the...

www.tomhartleyjnr.com

The fan on the back was "primarily" for cooling purposes (51%) and aerodynamic purpose was 49% - haha! This was because Lotus had brought in ground effects tunnels, and Brabham with their big fat Alfa Romeo flat-12 had no chance, the banks of cylinders were in the way, they also had flat radiators that didn't work especially well.

So Murray's genius solution was to seal the entire underbody of the car to the ground with skirts, front, rear, sides, the lot and then developed that 18" diameter fan at the back, running at something around maximum 8000rpm, driven by clutches off the gearbox to help "cool the engine". This was found out immediately for what it was, when the car was parked, if the flaps weren't opened, then when the engine was revved up (to warm it), the entire car squatted to the ground under the huge suction pressure of the fan. It had a massive advantage, its downforce wasn't speed dependent unlike other ground-effects cars, provided the fan was running at peak speed, it had huge downforce.

The others didn't like it - certainly outraged... One famous driver (Mario Andretti) was "hell man, that thing is chucking rocks and dust... it's gonna kill someone". These fan cars did behave like giant vacuum cleaners, sucking everything up from the road and spitting it out the back.

Forgive the long post, but those photos were interesting, not often you get to see a lot of detail on those very famous GP cars.

 

[BotchQue]

Electric motor in the PDK transmission as well as the turbo:

Porsche 911 Carrera GTS | Porsche USA

www.porsche.com

Thank you for posting that info; Marquez did mention two electric motors but I didn't quite follow him on how the second one was used.

 

[Alameda]

Electric motor in the PDK transmission as well as the turbo:

Porsche 911 Carrera GTS | Porsche USA

www.porsche.com

See the highlights further down the page. Good idea using the electric turbos, quite a few cars have that - helpful for the powerful diesels which can sometimes have a bit of lag from start.

The AMG One also has electric turbo technology, but it goes a bit further:

1x MGU-H turbocharger: https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/tech-explained-formula-1-mgu-h/
1x MGU-K E-motor (Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic)
2x front-axle E-motors

Complicated, but it works. All necessary when you want that level of performance from just 1.6L. Unfortunately very expensive technology.

These are the sorts of things that you just don’t want on an ordinary car. They’re great for very expensive cars which don’t get driven much and get discarded after a few years. Same thing with BMW’s V8 engines with the turbos inside the V… They generate so much heat that the oil lines melt and you get all sorts of failures.

With this solution, you get less turbo lag but you’re putting an electric motor on a component that gets extremely hot. There’s no 150,000 mile way to do that.

 

[diamond.g]

These are the sorts of things that you just don’t want on an ordinary car. They’re great for very expensive cars which don’t get driven much and get discarded after a few years. Same thing with BMW’s V8 engines with the turbos inside the V… They generate so much heat that the oil lines melt and you get all sorts of failures.

With this solution, you get less turbo lag but you’re putting an electric motor on a component that gets extremely hot. There’s no 150,000 mile way to do that.

Traditional anti-lag devices tend to be bad for turbos as well

 

[avro707]

The entire Mansour Ojjeh collection overview:

I had no idea there was even a flat-bottom steering wheel for the McLaren F1 - seems to have been only on chassis 075. The Daytona style seat trim is beautiful.

The Elva is not badged McLaren, it is badged "Mansour".

Mansour Ojjeh: 1952-2021

 

[diamond.g]

I may be slow, but there is a new Ferrari coming out. The steering wheel has buttons again!!!!

 

[avro707]

I saw that one, I prefer it to the previous Ferrari Roma. The old-school grill of the Roma put me off a bit. This looks cleaner and more modern.

I think if I had to have a modern Ferrari I'd have a GTC4 Lusso V12, or that Monza SP2, the Swaters Blu/Bianco Avus car that was originally delivered to Charles Pozzi in Paris:

2021 Ferrari Monza SP2 | Private Sales | RM Private Sales

2021 Ferrari Monza SP2 for sale by RM Sotheby's Private Sales 2025

rmsothebys.com

That one is beautiful, modelled off the 250TR of Scuderia Askolin.

 

[avro707]

DK Engineering has a GMA T.50 no.31:

It has some nice details but I'm not a fan of the side profile, nor do I like the engine sound - it's just too noisy. I wouldn't want to live with that excessive noise even just on start up and idle. The old McLaren F1 was better IMO.

 

[Herdfan]

There are reports that Jaguar sold just 49 vehicles in the UK in April (latest month sales available). There are approximately 20 dealers in the UK, so each sold an average of 2.45 vehicles in April. They won't stay open long at that rate.

Note: You can find proof of this with a Google search, but many of the articles touch on a reason that isn't allowed to be discussed here, so............

 

[avro707]

I heard about that, and also read about the "reason". Lotus is also in a troubled state.

I don't know how they can renovate the brand, I mean building old style Jaguar models isn't going to work, and the radical new shock style doesn't seem like it will work (the prototype is being tested now).

In my country, people think that a Jaguar will break down the moment you even look at it, never mind driving one. I know they are fairly robust (eg Project 7 and Project 8 are quite reliable). But how do you change old perceptions?

Aside from that, online, everyone wants a Jaguar of old, but if they were given a modern interpretation of a beautiful XJ-S, would they buy it? I doubt it - even if it was built brilliantly and drove great. They'd buy some SUV instead. And when Jaguar does an SUV, everyone shouts at them.

 

[avro707]

Driving the Ferrari F80 flat out:

The Top Gear video has better sound quality (better microphones) - it really sings.. Amazing performance. Hot weather doesn't bother it either in hard driving.

Other reviews are also saying it is really well sorted out. Seems to be the performance benchmark at the moment.

 

[Herdfan]

In my country, people think that a Jaguar will break down the moment you even look at it, never mind driving one. I know they are fairly robust (eg Project 7 and Project 8 are quite reliable). But how do you change old perceptions?

In the 80's there were companies that would put a GM engine in them. People were doing this to brand new cars.

As for how they recover, Audi managed to after the 60 Minutes hatchet job.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

In the 80's there were companies that would put a GM engine in them. People were doing this to brand new cars.

As for how they recover, Audi managed to after the 60 Minutes hatchet job.

I would have found that odd. The jaguar engines, and looks, were generally the best parts

 

[avro707]

The old V12 was a pretty good engine, especially in racing form. It was quite tough and pretty efficient.

Alan Scott did some very clever things to get 755hp out of a 7L engine and keep it efficient and reliable. The gearbox on the other hand wasn’t quite up to coping with the brute forces of that monster engine.

The really interesting one was the 48 valve 7L V12, it was used once. It had more torque and power was up to 780hp but it was also heavier, so it didn’t see further widespread use.

Super interesting was the engine management system program (by Zytek) for the engines used at Le Mans. It varied the fuel mixture depending on what the car was doing. Rich mixture for the long straights (to keep engine cool) and more power to drive the longer 5th gear (geared for 245mph), then lean mixture when slowing down. Also higher idle speed to pull cooler air through the cylinders.

The standard two valve 7L twelve cylinder had 600hp at 5000rpm, even 700 by 6000rpm, with maximum over 750hp. Astonishing numbers - that was not some special qualifying tune, it could do that all day and night with no bother at all.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

The old V12 was a pretty good engine, especially in racing form. It was quite tough and pretty efficient.

Alan Scott did some very clever things to get 755hp out of a 7L engine and keep it efficient and reliable. The gearbox on the other hand wasn’t quite up to coping with the brute forces of that monster engine.

The really interesting one was the 48 valve 7L V12, it was used once. It had more torque and power was up to 780hp but it was also heavier, so it didn’t see further widespread use.

Super interesting was the engine management system program (by Zytek) for the engines used at Le Mans. It varied the fuel mixture depending on what the car was doing. Rich mixture for the long straights (to keep engine cool) and more power to drive the longer 5th gear (geared for 245mph), then lean mixture when slowing down. Also higher idle speed to pull cooler air through the cylinders.

The standard two valve 7L twelve cylinder had 600hp at 5000rpm, even 700 by 6000rpm, with maximum over 750hp. Astonishing numbers - that was not some special qualifying tune, it could do that all day and night with no bother at all.

Nice, I had way more mundane engines like the XJ40 with the AJ6 4.0 engine. Or more recently my Range Rover with the 5.0V8 Supercharged, very nice to drive, powerful, yet efficient and so easy to tune